Hi there - I'm in a wee bit of a problem, and I was wondering if anyone could help me.

Well, my video footage was shot in a "raw DV" format (or a format with a .DV extension) and I wanted to know how I can (or if there are any available progams for this) convert a raw DV formatted video into a quicktime format (or an MPEG one for that matter). You see, when I open my video files in the "raw DV" extension format in Final Cut Pro (this would be on my apple computer), the program doesn't recognize the file at all, or it just opens as a corrupt or distored video file (a.k.a the video shows nothing but mixed colors). I want to convert this format into a quicktime or MPEG format so that when I open the file in Final Cut Pro, it can open smoothly and I could edit it without any problems.

Please reply ASAP anyone..I'd greatly appreciate the help!

If anyone has any questions about my operating system that would help him/her answer this question in a better way, let me know.

Can you open it in VirtualDub? You may need to install a DV codec like the Pansonic DV codec first. If so, you could frameserve it to a MPEG encoder like TMPGEnc or similar. Or possibly to QT pro, though I don't know if that will work.

Alternately if VD can open it, you could convert to regular DV. How did you obtain 'raw DV'? And you may need to convert it to/from Type1<>Type2, depending on what FC pro can use. There are converters in our DV Tool section: http://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/dv

Well, I successfully installed the panasonic DV Codec onto my computer so it could play the DV files normally like you said, but for some reason the files don't want to open in VirtualDub. I've tried everything; VirtualDub seems like it doesn't support the format, so it doesn't open it (in other words, it gives me an error everytime I try to open it in the program.)

The DV formatted videos aren't ".dv AVI" by the way. They are just simply raw footage or "Raw DV". The person who was shooting the videos for me made a careless error and put the camera to this format when he went to shoot the footage. What I want now is to simply open the .dv files effectivily in a converter program so that I can actually see a video of whatever footage I took and not just a bunch of scrambled colors and audio. Once I could see the video, I would next want to convert it into a quicktime format or an MPEG format so that FC Pro would finally recognize the program once I open it.

I'm not really skilled with this type of thing, so please bear with me! ^^;

Here's a screenshot of how the raw DV file looks like when it's opened in Quicktime Player (with the DV codec installed of course):

there is no raw dv. there are different formats such as dvcam, or dvcpro, but you are not going to get them to work on a home computer. if it was shot on a non-pro level cam on miniDV tape, you either have a dv avi (type I or II) or an HD file. or possibly he blew it completely and you have nada.

It looks like what you have is a Quicktime DV file. Not so easy to convert with a PC apparently. It looks like you can play it back with Media Player Classic like this: Media Player Classic options -> Player -> Formats -> scroll down to 'QuickTime file' -> add '.dv'

It looks like MediaInfo may be able to give you information about the file. I'm not sure how to convert it. Maybe Quicktime Pro. The only other possibility is maybe transcode it with VLC. It lists Raw DV as being able to play and has a transcoding feature that might work.

No, no, no. You guys are confusing the issue. I've worked with the Firestore and similar devices (many times before) that allow you to set the kind of "format" the DV is going to be saved as: RAW, QT, AVI, MXF, others.

The EASIEST thing to do is to open up with QT Pro (the one on the Mac--I'm pretty sure the PC doesn't have this option) and save as DV-compressed QT .MOV. Then, it'll open up fine in FCP. (This is a lossless conversion, BTW--just wraps the container around the DV stream after checking the stream's settings and mirroring them in the container's settings. And, no, you especially don't want to convert it to some other codec, or you'll get loss) You'll need the pro version, or you won't be able to export/save to anything.

Raw .DV files -are- using the DV codec to encode and decode. The 1st encode was in the camera.

You could also use that Firestore DV converter (as it does just that), or a few other utilities out there, but QTPro is actually cheaper than all those.

No, no, no. You guys are confusing the issue. I've worked with the Firestore and similar devices (many times before) that allow you to set the kind of "format" the DV is going to be saved as: RAW, QT, AVI, MXF, others.

The EASIEST thing to do is to open up with QT Pro (the one on the Mac--I'm pretty sure the PC doesn't have this option) and save as DV-compressed QT .MOV. Then, it'll open up fine in FCP. (This is a lossless conversion, BTW--just wraps the container around the DV stream after checking the stream's settings and mirroring them in the container's settings. And, no, you especially don't want to convert it to some other codec, or you'll get loss) You'll need the pro version, or you won't be able to export/save to anything.

Raw .DV files -are- using the DV codec to encode and decode. The 1st encode was in the camera.

You could also use that Firestore DV converter (as it does just that), or a few other utilities out there, but QTPro is actually cheaper than all those.

I just have a couple of questions though..I want to try that method you just mentioned with QT pro, but the thing is..how do I locate the QT pro program itself on a Mac computer and open it up? I've already purchased the registration key for QT Pro just now and I've inputed the key and my name into the System Preferences>Quick Time thing. I've even downloaded QT Player 7 just to be sure I'm on the right track, but I can't seem to locate the program anywhere.

Is QT Pro 7 within the Quicktime Player itself, or is it found as a seperate program? If it IS within QT Player, how do I know for sure that the additional features that come with QT Pro is downloaded and already listed within QT player?

QT Pro is just the "unlocked" version of QT player (for that version # only). The registration key is the thing that unlocks it. Same player. Just that now you can save/export/edit/adjust with it. If you did the registration thingy alright, you won't have any "greyed out" menu items anymore.

QT Pro is just the "unlocked" version of QT player (for that version # only). The registration key is the thing that unlocks it. Same player. Just that now you can save/export/edit/adjust with it. If you did the registration thingy alright, you won't have any "greyed out" menu items anymore.

Scott

Ah, I see now! Thank you very much! ^_^

I just want to know now. How do I exactly save the file as a DV compressed QT. MOV? I tried "Save as" but that didn't give me much. Should I export the file once I open it or..?

QT Pro is just the "unlocked" version of QT player (for that version # only). The registration key is the thing that unlocks it. Same player. Just that now you can save/export/edit/adjust with it. If you did the registration thingy alright, you won't have any "greyed out" menu items anymore.

Scott

Ah, I see now! Thank you very much! ^_^

I just want to know now. How do I exactly save the file as a DV compressed QT. MOV? I tried "Save as" but that didn't give me much. Should I export the file once I open it or..?

is there an option to save as dv avi type I or II? those are the standard "containers" for working on a microsoft platform. your "raw" dv will just be put into a form usable by windows applications. it will still use exactly the same codec as it did before, just in a more user friendly format. type II is generally preferred, but there are programs to change from one to the other.

is there an option to save as dv avi type I or II? those are the standard "containers" for working on a microsoft platform. your "raw" dv will just be put into a form usable by windows applications. it will still use exactly the same codec as it did before, just in a more user friendly format. type II is generally preferred, but there are programs to change from one to the other.

Well, I'm not really sure, since I'm using my Mac computer right now. I'm currently trying to change the format through Quick Time Player>Export, but I guess I'm not getting anywhere.

All I want to know is how to save the file as the DV compression type QT MOV thing, so I could see if it works or not. I have QT Pro downloaded, registered, everything.

(Just tried it on my system, worked for me. I'm a little worried that you couldn't see the movie in QT the 1st time, as my older copy could see a .dv just fine, even in Windows--maybe there are some other troubles we don't know about)

if you get back on your windows machine, download the free vlc video player and try your file. vlc will play .dv files. about the only ms platform app that will. if it still doesn't play you probalby have a bad video.

(Just tried it on my system, worked for me. I'm a little worried that you couldn't see the movie in QT the 1st time, as my older copy could see a .dv just fine, even in Windows--maybe there are some other troubles we don't know about)

Scott

Thank you so much! I'll try it out and see if it works.

Hmm..that's weird. I've tried to play the dv file many times with quicktime player on both my Windows PC and Mac OS - both of them end up opening the file as a video with a bunch of mixed colors and messed up audio. I wonder what's wrong..

If you didn't see the screencap from earlier, this is how a dv video file opens up on QT player on my Windows PC (Mac is the same as well):

if you get back on your windows machine, download the free vlc video player and try your file. vlc will play .dv files. about the only ms platform app that will. if it still doesn't play you probalby have a bad video.

I actually downloaded the VLC player on my Windows PC awhile ago (when it was mentioned in redwuz's post), and tried to play the dv file on it, but the same problem occured - it opened up as a video with mixed colors and scrambled audio. Just like how it appears with QT Player:

I also tried transcoding it to different formats, but that didn't seem to work as well either. The CLOSEST I've gotten to solving anything on there though is when I transcoded it into a MPEG-4 video with MPEG-4 audio..it gave me a video with either messed up colors or nothing at all (the first one had a different video format - the colored one) and an audio that was ALMOST fixed (I could hear and understand what people were saying, but it was still a "bumpy" and cut off between every sound beat - I hope you understand what I mean! ^^; )

So I have no clue what's going on..maybe there's some vital information I've missed here or something.